There's something that has been bothering lately. With the NX coming soon (between 2016-2017) we'll enter the 9th generation of videogame consoles. And depending on the sales of the XBone against the PS4, maybe Microsoft will start thinking about a successor between 2017-2019, to help solve the power difference between them and the competition. By that point in time, the PS4 will have sold a lot (and I mean A LOT) of units. The situation will be similar to the 6th gen and the PS2 utterly dominating before the start of the 7th gen, but with a major difference. The power jump between 6th gen-7th gen will be way bigger than that of the 8th-9th. Even if the power difference is noticeable due to the needs of virtual reality and other things, the jump of he 7th gen is probably the last big jump we'll see in a couple of gens (at least, noticeable power jump).

And that's the thing. The PS2, the best selling console of all time, did not held the next generation back in any significant way. Either the games needed more power and went with the 360 and PS3, or they were able to sell  well on the Wii thanks to the hype of that system. Back in the NES days, the Genesis tried to compete with the NES and gained support from 3rd parties that jumped the boat, even if the NES had a significantly bigger userbase, devs needed more power to work with.

With the PS4, it may be different. The powe jump isn't nearly as big, and really the biggest hardware constrain I see it's that some games can't reach 1080p 60fps. The PS4 has a decent amount of power as it is, and by the time the NX and the XBtwo come out, i will have a significant lead over these two.

Is it possible that the PS4 might actually slow the growth of the 9th generation down? And I don't mean just selling less consoles, I mean making developers staying on the PS4 instead of fully jumping to next gen. This generation we've had almost a year and a half with crossgens multiplats being something common. Imagine if the PS4 can make that period more than two or even three years. Unless 9th gen consoles can grow a big userbase fast, there's no reason to think they will leave developement on 8th gen.

If Xbox launch early in 2018 Sony just have to say no plans for a PS5 for a few years. The ps4 will be 199 by then and an expensive new xbox will be annihilated. That would be too early for the jump to 4k so they wouldn't have a justifiable boost in power.

And as that flops and Sony do insane sales on top of already insane sales the PS5 comes out in 2021 with a major boost over the PS4 at 399 and it explodes even faster then the ps4 did but with no competition.

Microsoft might not bother with another console but if they do they would want to hold on until at least 2020 and get in at most 1 year ahead of the ps5.

There's a lot of assumptions you bring up in a possible situation like this ...

We don't even know if the NX will be more powerful compared to the PS4 or even if Microsoft will attempt bring in another platform ...

It's pretty early to do a replacement cycle when 8th gen is only starting to gain traction too ...

Possibly. We're in an odd place in terms of power on consoles/pc. At some point you really can't make the games look that much better.

Considering major AAA studios that create the huge blockbuster games (Assassin's Creed, GTA, COD, Uncharted ect) usually have upwards of 400-500 people working on them, it's not like you can realistically just add more people to make better looking games. Pretty much tapped out at this point.

I guess the final product would be to literally make videos on par with anime/tv shows/movies in terms of that is actually how the gameplay is. Not just cut scenes.

But after that, how do you make the game look better? Very curious to see where we go. I have no clue what video games will be like in 10 years.

I would question Microsoft's goals for a successor at this point. They seem to really be trying to mesh the PC and Xbox together, and it may mean we'll just see the Xbox equivalent of Steam Machines in the next five or six years. If that happens, the power of other machines will be somewhat irrelevant.

Nintendo exists basically in their own development bubble. They are in an exceptionally weird position in the game market, and nothing about this generation could actually affect the NX. Honestly, calling the NX next gen may be pushing it, since people associate next gen with increased power, and the prevalent rumor is that the NX won't even be as powerful as the PS4. That aside, what Sony does is unlikely to greatly affect Nintendo past making it that much more difficult to win third parties back.

Really though, it's hard to know what to expect from next generation. Nintendo seems to be the only one that we can guess is fairly certain to stay on a more standard console development cycle, whereas Sony and Microsoft are both seriously branching out with their various services associated with their game consoles. One thing that is absolutely certain is that we will never see a huge jump like sixth to seventh generation ever again. We are at the point of near hitting realism in our games even with the power of the PS4. Sure, we can go up to 4k or whatever, but in the end, that isn't a game changer.

The only way I see the next generation going forward is by changing the way we play in a meaningful way. It's why I have high hopes for VR, as I feel it has the capacity to push gaming in a new, necessary direction now that general hardware upgrades are becoming less and less relevant.

Back to the main topic though: will PS4 hold back the next generation? Unlikely.

I know. This is my theory, specially because I don't know a lot of things. But this situation seems plausible, and that worries me because I don't want an almost monopoly of the console market that could potentially be bigger than the PS2 situation. Also, it's not too early to talk about the 9th gen, because the NX is coming, either next year or the one after that.

I'm sure the Next Xbox will launch at earliest 2019. Also compared to the 6th gen when Xbox sold 23m and ps2 sold 150 this gen would be around x1 50m and ps4 90 which isn't that bad. Also i think When Sony talks about their Next Console MS will do what they did last gen and go for the early head start.

the whole 8th generation started wrong IMHO because all consoles in 7th gen were selling well so each company wanted to stick to those consoles...

The plausibility of your case is arguable and competition isn't always better than a monopoly ... 

Whether or not NX is 9th gen is also arguable when it's competitors are 8th gen consoles ... 

When it came out, the Genesis was competing mostly with the NES, and you can't really say the Genesis is a 3rd gen console.

And I always prefer options over a monopoly. They may be options that I don't like, but if there's more that I can choose, more probabilities of finding something I would like.